Chapter 9 - Page 2

twelve thousand a year--"

"How much?"

"That's all I can call my really own."

"And you consider that insufficient?" asked the Tyro, in a queer, strained voice.

"Not as long as papa pays my principal bills," she explained. "But of course, to live on--" An expressive shrug furnished the conclusion.

"For some years I lived on less than a tenth of it," said he.

"No! It couldn't be done."

"Don't you know anything at all about life?" he demanded, almost angrily.

"Of course I do. But I don't bother about money and such things."

"I do. I've had to all my life. Even now, when I consider myself very well off, I can make only a little more than the income which you consider mere pin-money."

"Yet you can buy houses on the Battery," she insinuated.

"Only through the option that gives me the inside track. And even that will make a huge hole in my pile."

"Ah, well," she said petulantly. "I don't see what difference it makes. Anyway, I'm bored. Aren't you going to be any more amusing than this at Guenn Oaks?"

"I'm not coming to Guenn Oaks."

"Who are you to say what you are or are not going to do--Slave?" she said with her most imperious air.

At the tone, he rallied a difficult smile. "I'm the Honest Workingman. Whereas you are--" he spread his hands out in a suave gesture, which was exceedingly displeasing to Little Miss Grouch--"a mirage."

"A mirage?" she repeated.

"The Eternally Unattainable."

"Long words always make my head ache."

"I'll state it mathematically. If you concentrate your powerful intellect upon the problem you will perceive that two plus two equals four."

"In that faith I live and die! But what it has to do with Bertie Guenn's invitation--"

"The sum proves up equally when raised to thousands, or millions."

"What concern has a Perfect Pig with figures?" she asked wistfully, and lifted a hesitant hand in the darkness.

It fell lightly on his arm. In the soft gloom her face glimmered, dimly warm to his vision, upturned to his. The fog covered much that might otherwise have been seen, but failed to smother what might have been (and in fact was, as Judge Enderby and Dr. Alderson, turning the angle of the deck, halted and tactfully melted away) heard. To wit:--

"Oh!" in a feminine and tremulous pitch.

"Forgive me," said the Tyro hoarsely. "That was for good-bye."

Was it a detaining hand that went forth in the darkness? If so, it failed of its purpose, for the Tyro had gone.

Then and